Heat Are 6.5 Chalk at Home versus Pacers

The NBA playoffs tip off Monday night from south Florida when the Miami Heat hosts the Indiana Pacers in Game 4 of their best of seven Eastern Conference finals series.

Indiana let a great opportunity to win home court advantage back getaway on Saturday. Tonight the Pacers need a win to tie the series or they will fall behind 3-1 and be on the brink of elimination.

Indiana led Game 3 early opening up a lead of 19-5 during the first quarter of play. However, the rest of the way, the Pacers were outscored by 24 points and lost by 10.

Miami has been outrebounded by Indiana as the Pacers are a superior rebounding team, but in Game 3, the teams tied with 29 rebounds apiece. Miami also was the leader in points in the paint with 40 to Indiana’s 38.

In this head-to-head series, Miami is 16-11 SU and 14-13 ATS over the past three seasons. At home, the Heat has been a dominating force in the head-to-head series with a record of 16-3 SU and 12-7 ATS.

Nevertheless, according to data from Bovada and betonline, the Pacers on the road this year are 26-22 SU and 22-26 ATS.

According to information gleaned from topbet and sporstbook.com, Indiana is 31-17 ATS following a road loss over the past two seasons.

This season Miami is just 22-24-1 ATS playing at home, but a strong 38-9 SU.

While Miami is just an average 32-35-3 against the number on less than two full days of rest this year, the Heat is 10-2 against the spread playing five games or less over a span of 14 days.

In this series, Indiana is averaging 92.3 points per game. In the regular season, Indiana averaged 97 points per game.

All five Indiana starters are scoring at least 12 points per game with Paul George leading the team with 18 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds per game.

Miami was great offensively this season with 102.2 points per game average. However, with the tough Indiana defense, Miami is scoring just 94 points per game.

Both LeBron James and Dwayne Wade are averaging 24 points per game in the series, with both scoring 73 points over the three games.

The Pacers have had a tough time holding onto leads and closing out Miami late in the game. If the games were just three periods, the Pacers might be 3-0 in the series.

Nevertheless, the Pacers are down 2-1 thanks to falling apart in the fourth quarter in Games 1 and 2.